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The Black Cat Mental Illness

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Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat” is an iconic short story of a man who struggles with mental illness and through Poe’s use of an unreliable narrator, the subliminal psychological and biographic approach is strongly reflected in this work. Due to Poe being a man that faced numerous struggles in his life, his writing pieces reflect his own life through the narrator’s actions. “The Black Cat” authored by the pivotal gothic author, Edgar Allan Poe, is a short story in which the author subconsciously associates himself as the narrator both from his own hardships from various life events, as well as his struggle with addiction and mental illness. The author, born Edgar Poe, became orphaned as only a young toddler when both his mother …show more content…

While Poe tells the reader that his anger resides in his cat, his wife’s resistance of murdering the cat only …show more content…

The narrator early describes how victimized he feels, and that he must admit his guilt and repent for his actions, alluding to the reader sympathizing with him. Poe writes that the narrator must “free my soul from the horrible weight which lies upon it. But listen! Listen, and you shall hear how I have been destroyed” (Poe 34). Poe attempts to evoke a sense of sorrow early in this story, before the reader continues to realize that the repentance is due to the narrator having murdered his wife and cats. The syntax in which Poe writes, shows a dehumanization of his wife after murdering her, and before his execution by death penalty was “hoping to exonerate himself” (Piacentino). The feeling of such hatred and abhorrence against his wife that the narrator exhibited, Poe likely included in this story and was due to her “showing unconditional love toward the cat, the same kind of attention and love animals had once shown toward him” (Piacentino). Through Poe’s writing, he included this subconsciously, as he too, may have felt unloved or rejected because of the numerous losses he encountered in his short life – including his parents, and his

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